Category Archives: World

Intrigue and uproar has spiked yet again in Washington regarding the Russia probe, with renewed questions arising about the future of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. VOA’s Michael Bowman reports, days after the FBI’s deputy director was fired, U.S. lawmakers are warning President Donald Trump against any intention he may have to instigate Mueller’s dismissal. …

U.S. President Donald Trump is assailing special counsel Robert Mueller, accusing him of political bias in his investigation of Trump’s 2016 election campaign links to Russia and whether the president obstructed justice in trying to thwart the probe.

“Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added … does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!” Trump said in one of a string of Twitter remarks over the weekend recalling his defeat of Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton and his negative view of the investigations in the year and a half since then.

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Trump ignored noting that at least at one point Mueller was a registered Trump ignored noting that at least at one point Mueller was a registered Republican voter and is generally viewed in Washington as an apolitical prosecutor, whose investigation of the Trump campaign is supported by Democrats and key Republicans who voiced their support on Sunday news shows for Mueller’s handling of the probe.

The U.S. leader also attacked two former ousted FBI officials, former director James Comey, fired by Trump last May, and former deputy director Andrew McCabe, dismissed at Trump’s urging late Friday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, 26 hours before McCabe was set to retire and collect his full pension. Trump contended that Comey’s and McCabe’s personal written recollections of their conversations he had with them are fabricated.

Trump said he “spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me. I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?” In another tweet, Trump referred to the one-time FBI chief as “Sanctimonious James Comey” and said he made McCabe “look like a choirboy.”

Sessions dismissed McCabe after concurring with an internal Justice Department investigation that McCabe “had made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions,” a news leak McCabe said Comey knew about while they served together at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Trump tweeted about a segment he watched on his favorite morning news show, Fox and Friends, “Wow, watch Comey lie under oath” at a Senate hearing, “when asked “have you ever been an anonymous source … or known someone else to be an anonymous source …?” He said strongly “never, no.” He lied as shown clearly …”

Trump said, “the Fake News,” Trump’s epithet for the national news media, “is beside themselves that McCabe was caught, called out and fired … How many lies? How many leaks? Comey knew it all, and much more!”

The president contended “The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime. It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary” and the Democratic National Committee, “and improperly used” by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!”

John Dowd, Trump’s personal lawyer, praised Sessions on Saturday for firing McCabe, and then suggested that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the special counsel, “bring an end” to Mueller’s investigation.

Shortly after McCabe was fired, the president praised the decision on Twitter, calling it a “great day for Democracy.”

On Sunday, Senator Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a key Trump supporter, told CNN that Mueller “needs to be able to do his job without interference.” Graham said that if Trump were to attempt to fire Mueller it would be “the beginning of the end of his presidency.”

Congressman Trey Gowdy, another South Carolina Republican, told Fox News, “I think the president’s lawyer does a disservice when he says that and frames the investigation that way … Russia attacked our country, let special counsel Mueller figure that out.”

Gowdy was part of the Republican majority on the House Intelligence Committee that concluded a week ago that there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, but said in the television interview, “You should want Special Counsel Mueller to take all the time and have all the independence he needs to do his job.”

Trump said, “As the House Intelligence Committee has concluded, there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign. As many are now finding out, however, there was tremendous leaking, lying and corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, Justice & State. Drain The Swamp.”

McCabe, in a statement after his firing, called his ouster “retribution,” saying, “I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of [former FBI Director] James Comey.” U.S. news accounts said he had written contemporaneous accounts of his conversations with Trump.

His firing, barely a day ahead of his 50th birthday on Sunday, could cost McCabe thousands of dollars in retirement benefits. …

Two U.S. Republican senators sparred Sunday over President Donald Trump’s nomination of Mike Pompeo, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, as his new secretary of state, and deputy CIA chief Gina Haspel to take over at the intelligence agency.

If confirmed, Haspel would be the first female director in the CIA’s 70-year history.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina predicted on CNN that both Pompeo and Haspel would be confirmed by the Senate. He dismissed one opponent of the nominations, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, as “an outlier” among Republican lawmakers.

Paul, also on CNN, argued against Pompeo, saying Pompeo supports U.S.-sanctioned regime change in some foreign countries. Rand said Haspel was linked to CIA torture of terrorism suspects at clandestine sites overseas.

Paul said he would “do whatever it takes” to derail the two nominations in the Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow 51-49 majority. Paul said that if need be, he would filibuster the nominations, in an attempt to block them from winning approval.

Graham described Haspel as “highly qualified,” while acknowledging her past support of “enhanced interrogation” techniques — including waterboarding, which simulates drowning — against terrorism suspects in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. The CIA no longer permits enhanced interrogation.

“I’m looking forward for her to acknowledge this policy is no longer allowed,” Graham said.

Paul said he does not think Pompeo, a former Kansas congressman before Trump named him CIA director, would be a “good fit” as the nation’s top diplomat to succeed Rex Tillerson, who was fired last week by Trump after a year on the job.

“I don’t think our policy ought to be for regime change,” Paul said.

As for Haspel, Paul said, “What America stands for is not torture. Torture is the hallmark of totalitarianism.”

Paul cited Haspel’s reported oversight of a CIA “black site” in Thailand and her subsequent role in an order to destroy video evidence of the interrogations.

“It’s just inconsistent with who we are as a people to have someone run our spy agency that has all this enormous power, who is intimately involved with torture, and from everything we’re reading, was supportive of the policy,” Paul said.

March 20 marks the 15th anniversary of U.S. President George W. Bush announcing the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, with air strikes and ground troops deployed to target long-time dictator Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leaders. But the mission and its complicated legacy have not been without controversy. VOA’s Jill Craig has more from Washington. …

March 20 marks the 15th anniversary of U.S. President George W. Bush announcing the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, with air strikes and ground troops deployed to target long-time dictator Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leaders. But the mission and its complicated legacy have not been without controversy. VOA’s Jill Craig has more from Washington. …

In a series of blistering tweets, President Donald Trump falsely asserted that the House Intelligence Committee has concluded there was no collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia.

Trump in his Saturday tweets lashed out at his perceived foes tied to the Russia investigation and exulted in the firing of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, once a leader of the bureau’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices. The FBI’s decision not to pursue criminal charges against Clinton infuriated Trump at the time, and still does.

TRUMP: “As the House Intelligence Committee has concluded, there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign. As many are now finding out, however, there was tremendous leaking, lying and corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, Justice & State.” — Trump tweet.

THE FACTS: He’s wrong. That conclusion came from Republicans on the committee; it was not a committee finding. Democrats on the committee sharply dispute the Republican conclusions and will issue their own.

Whatever the findings of the committee, special counsel Robert Mueller is leading the key investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and Russian contacts with the Trump campaign. The probe has produced a number of charges and convictions, none to date alleging criminal collusion. But Mueller continues to explore whether collusion occurred and whether Trump or others may have obstructed justice.

Trump did not specify what he meant in accusing the agencies of corruption. McCabe was fired in advance of an inspector general’s report that’s expected to conclude he was not forthcoming about matters related to the FBI investigation of Clinton’s emails.

TRUMP: “The Fake News is beside themselves that McCabe was caught, called out and fired. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars was given to wife’s campaign by Crooked H friend, Terry M, who was also under investigation? How many lies? How many leaks? Comey knew it all, and much more!” — Trump tweet.

THE FACTS: Some context is missing here. This is true: McCabe’s wife, Jill McCabe, ran as a Democrat for the Virginia state Senate in 2015, and the political action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe gave her campaign $500,000 during her race. McAuliffe is a longtime associate of Hillary Clinton, branded “Crooked H” by Trump. Jill McCabe lost the race.

Trump’s complaint, as he spelled it out in the past, is that Clinton-linked money went to “the wife of the FBI agent who was in charge of her investigation.” But that timeline is wrong. Andrew McCabe was elevated to deputy FBI director and didn’t become involved in the Clinton email probe until after his wife’s bid for office was over. The FBI said McCabe’s promotion and supervisory position in the email investigation happened three months after the campaign.

The bureau also said in a statement at the time that McCabe sought guidance from agency ethics officers and recused himself from “all FBI investigative matters involving Virginia politics” throughout his wife’s campaign. …

In a series of blistering tweets, President Donald Trump falsely asserted that the House Intelligence Committee has concluded there was no collusion between his presidential campaign and Russia.

Trump in his Saturday tweets lashed out at his perceived foes tied to the Russia investigation and exulted in the firing of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, once a leader of the bureau’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices. The FBI’s decision not to pursue criminal charges against Clinton infuriated Trump at the time, and still does.

TRUMP: “As the House Intelligence Committee has concluded, there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump Campaign. As many are now finding out, however, there was tremendous leaking, lying and corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, Justice & State.” — Trump tweet.

THE FACTS: He’s wrong. That conclusion came from Republicans on the committee; it was not a committee finding. Democrats on the committee sharply dispute the Republican conclusions and will issue their own.

Whatever the findings of the committee, special counsel Robert Mueller is leading the key investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and Russian contacts with the Trump campaign. The probe has produced a number of charges and convictions, none to date alleging criminal collusion. But Mueller continues to explore whether collusion occurred and whether Trump or others may have obstructed justice.

Trump did not specify what he meant in accusing the agencies of corruption. McCabe was fired in advance of an inspector general’s report that’s expected to conclude he was not forthcoming about matters related to the FBI investigation of Clinton’s emails.

TRUMP: “The Fake News is beside themselves that McCabe was caught, called out and fired. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars was given to wife’s campaign by Crooked H friend, Terry M, who was also under investigation? How many lies? How many leaks? Comey knew it all, and much more!” — Trump tweet.

THE FACTS: Some context is missing here. This is true: McCabe’s wife, Jill McCabe, ran as a Democrat for the Virginia state Senate in 2015, and the political action committee of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe gave her campaign $500,000 during her race. McAuliffe is a longtime associate of Hillary Clinton, branded “Crooked H” by Trump. Jill McCabe lost the race.

Trump’s complaint, as he spelled it out in the past, is that Clinton-linked money went to “the wife of the FBI agent who was in charge of her investigation.” But that timeline is wrong. Andrew McCabe was elevated to deputy FBI director and didn’t become involved in the Clinton email probe until after his wife’s bid for office was over. The FBI said McCabe’s promotion and supervisory position in the email investigation happened three months after the campaign.

The bureau also said in a statement at the time that McCabe sought guidance from agency ethics officers and recused himself from “all FBI investigative matters involving Virginia politics” throughout his wife’s campaign. …

Lawmakers and former federal officials weighed in Saturday on the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe late Friday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who served under former President Barack Obama, tweeted “this is dangerous” when referring to McCabe’s ouster.

“Analyze McCabe firing on two levels: the substance and the timing. We don’t know enough about the substance yet. The timing appears cruel and a cave [capitulation] that compromised DOJ [Department of Justice] independence, to please an increasingly erratic President who should’ve played no role here,” Holder said on Twitter Saturday.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, who also served under Obama and has been a frequent critic of the Trump administration, aimed his Twitter remarks directly at President Donald Trump: “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history,” he said. “America will triumph over you.”

A former FBI agent who worked closely with McCabe before his own retirement two years ago, Frank Montoya Jr., told Business Insider: “This is a political assassination on a good man and public servant. It is also a savage broadside on the institution he served.”

Montoya also questioned the timing of McCabe’s firing.

“One does not get fired one day before one is eligible” for retirement, he said. “I’ve never heard of that happening before in 26 years of service.”

Critics applaud

Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, however, issued a statement Saturday that said McCabe’s actions had “tarnished” the FBI’s reputation.

“I applaud Attorney General Jeff Sessions for taking action and firing former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe prior to his scheduled retirement,” said Goodlatte, head of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker, who retired in 2006, said in a commentary for Fox News that McCabe’s firing “was justified because the FBI has a [sic] zero tolerance for lying under oath.”

“In fact,” he said, “there are many examples of the rank and file in the FBI losing their jobs and retirement benefits for violating these high standards.” …

Lawmakers and former federal officials weighed in Saturday on the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe late Friday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who served under former President Barack Obama, tweeted “this is dangerous” when referring to McCabe’s ouster.

“Analyze McCabe firing on two levels: the substance and the timing. We don’t know enough about the substance yet. The timing appears cruel and a cave [capitulation] that compromised DOJ [Department of Justice] independence, to please an increasingly erratic President who should’ve played no role here,” Holder said on Twitter Saturday.

Former CIA Director John Brennan, who also served under Obama and has been a frequent critic of the Trump administration, aimed his Twitter remarks directly at President Donald Trump: “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history,” he said. “America will triumph over you.”

A former FBI agent who worked closely with McCabe before his own retirement two years ago, Frank Montoya Jr., told Business Insider: “This is a political assassination on a good man and public servant. It is also a savage broadside on the institution he served.”

Montoya also questioned the timing of McCabe’s firing.

“One does not get fired one day before one is eligible” for retirement, he said. “I’ve never heard of that happening before in 26 years of service.”

Critics applaud

Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, however, issued a statement Saturday that said McCabe’s actions had “tarnished” the FBI’s reputation.

“I applaud Attorney General Jeff Sessions for taking action and firing former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe prior to his scheduled retirement,” said Goodlatte, head of the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker, who retired in 2006, said in a commentary for Fox News that McCabe’s firing “was justified because the FBI has a [sic] zero tolerance for lying under oath.”

“In fact,” he said, “there are many examples of the rank and file in the FBI losing their jobs and retirement benefits for violating these high standards.” …

With Rex Tillerson’s abrupt firing as U.S. secretary of state Tuesday, the focus is now on President Donald Trump’s choice to take his place, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and what this change would mean for U.S. foreign policy.

“He had a lot of ‘face time’ with President Trump. He impressed Trump, is a loyalist. So you’ll have a loyal foreign policy out of the State Department,” Ariel Cohen of the Atlantic Council said. “You also have somebody with an intelligence and military background.”

WATCH: Under Pompeo Analysts Expect More Reliance on US Military Strength

Congressional confirmation hearings for the secretary of state nominee will be held next month, with Pompeo possibly taking the helm of the State Department just weeks after the Trump administration agreed to enter into talks with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

Days ago, in an emotional farewell at the State Department briefing room, Tillerson cited what he views as one of the achievements of his tenure, the success of the U.S.-led maximum pressure campaign of sanctions on North Korea.

“First, working with allies, we exceeded the expectations of almost everyone with the DPRK maximum pressure campaign,” Tillerson said Tuesday, just hours after his reported firing.

Pompeo and Pyongyang

Tillerson’s designated replacement, Pompeo, has often taken a hardline approach to North Korea, emphasizing the existential threat Pyongyang’s nuclear missiles pose to cities on the U.S mainland.

“We have a threat from flash points that something could spark and have a conventional war, right, wholly apart from the issues we talk about with ICBMs and nuclear,” Pompeo told the Senate Intelligence Committee last May.

The CIA director has been loyal to the president, and after Trump’s surprise announcement last week that he is willing to meet with North Korea’s Kim, he went on several news shows to voice his support for the decision.

The former Republican congressman has been a vocal critic of the landmark Iran nuclear deal ever since it was signed in 2015.

“The (deal) can perhaps delay Iran’s nuclear weapons program for a few years. … Conversely, it has virtually guaranteed that Iran will have the freedom to build an arsenal of nuclear weapons at the end of the commitment,” Pompeo wrote in opposition to the deal while serving as a U.S. representative.

In 2016 he tweeted, “I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism.” His personal Twitter account has since been deactivated.

Based on his past tough statements on North Korea, China and Iran, many analysts say Pompeo, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, will likely rely more on U.S. military strength, and be less supportive of international agreements than Tillerson.

Pompeo has made statements advocating “regime change” in Iran and North Korea.

“I think Pompeo is more of a hawk, more of a Trumpian, more of this sort of new wave of what I would call American nationalism, and we see countries becoming more nationalistic all over the world,” Atlantic Council’s Cohen said.

And some worry that Pompeo’s confirmation makes it more likely the United States will pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, and subsequently jeopardize any diplomatic efforts with Pyongyang.

“There is no way in the world that throwing out a valid agreement (the Iran nuclear deal) that is working would increase your negotiating leverage with North Korea,” said Thomas Countryman, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation. “Rather, it should cause the North Korean leader to ask himself, How can I sign any agreement with the president who’s prepared to break every previous agreement?’”

Countryman told VOA he is concerned about the shake-up at the State Department, because he believes Tillerson has good instincts on foreign policy and was a moderating influence on Trump.

Pompeo on Russian meddling

When it comes to Russia, Pompeo has gone further than Trump in calling out Moscow for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

“It’s pretty clear about what took place here about Russian involvements in efforts to hack information and to have an impact on American democracy,” Pompeo told a Senate panel at his confirmation hearing to become the CIA director in January 2017.

But he also met with the heads of Russia’s three intelligence services during their unprecedented visit to Washington earlier this year.

Pompeo has said Russian interference had no impact on the outcome of the 2016 race for the White House, which is not something U.S. intelligence agencies say they are even qualified to assess. …